


it's all in your mind

by maxapple



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Canon, they smooch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27865765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxapple/pseuds/maxapple
Summary: doug tries to regain his footing as the crew of the hephaestus starts on it's way back to earth.
Relationships: Doug Eiffel/Daniel Jacobi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	it's all in your mind

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written a fic in actual years but i binged wolf 359 recently and there is really not enough content for these two. title from "spaceman" by the killers.

Doug Eiffel grows slowly and intimately familiar with the sick, twisting feeling in his stomach that comes with not knowing something everyone else expects you to know.   
It occurs to him quickly that while they know that he is not the Original Doug Eiffel, some part of them still expects him to be. The first few days everyone walks on eggshells- friendly but distant. But once they settle, it creeps out into every single conversation, twisting his stomach into all sorts of uncomfortable knots. Reneé (Minkowski, everyone but him calls her) announces that they haven't got any coffee and says something about seaweed and looks at him for a second too long. It takes him a second to connect the dots, but he knows enough from the tapes that he can nod and smile.  
That, however, apparently doesn't seem enough like the before-Doug, though, and he sees the minute realization in Reneé's face. His stomach drops.  
Eiffel isn't sure, really, if he wishes he remembered everything. The tapes make old-Doug seem like a bit of an asshole, and Lovelace once says that it's something of a mercy. Reneé fixes her with a glare.  
Jacobi is different. He doesn't say much, really, aside from the front that he presents around Minkowski and Lovelace, and just sort of looks at Eiffel. Jacobi is utterly unreadable, unlike the others, putting up a consistent front of vaguely smug friendliness. But there's something off whenever the two of them are alone together in the few days before they leave the orbit of Wolf 359, and it makes Eiffel think there's a piece missing in the puzzle he's slowly assembled of the crew of the Hepheastus.   
Eiffel knows almost naturally that he cares about these people, even when he hardly knows them, the same way the remembers English, the same way his thoughts reach for a reference to something that isn't there. His habits seem to know things he doesn't, like the way that he automatically asks Hera benign questions even though the sudden sound of her disembodied voice still startles him. There is something foreignly comforting about talking to her.   
Eiffel knows that they don't expect him to be before-Doug, but he also catches on that any inadvertent reminders of Doug's personality make the crew- his(?) crew- seem more comfortable around him, and the instinctive part of him wants that desperately. He knows he doesn't like the eggshells everyone is walking on. He craves the same familiarity that old-Doug had, for whatever subconscious reason. He supposes that if you spends two years with people, even if your mind forgets them, your soul might not. He tells Hera this, and she goes silent for a full minute.  
So Eiffel listens to the tapes over and over and over, tries to absorb the scraps of personality that he can glean from old-Doug's easy words and casual conversation, asks Hera question after question, and tries to build himself into the shape of Doug Eiffel. He figures that it's a start, if nothing else, something that he can push off from.   
It works, a little bit, he's able to slowly adopt old-Doug's speech patterns, learns to joke in earnest with Lovelace and Reneé and Jacobi (though Jacobi always looks at him strangely when he tries). He gives calling Reneé "Commander" a short, and it feels almost natural in his mouth, but unlike his other small mimicrys of old-Doug's speech patterns, this one just seems to make her sad. She gently corrects him, says "that's okay, Doug," in too soft a voice. Too obvious, he concludes, and goes back to saying "Reneé".  
He slowly creates a balance of being now-Doug and learning old-Doug; any references to old-Doug's time on the Hepheastus either make the crew ask him if he's remembering something in an excruciatingly hopeful tone or gently assure him he doesn't have to be the man he was before. He knows this, but he has to build himself from somewhere, right? And if he can, he wants to make it easier on them, these people that he knows he cares about.   
The other side of the balance is fair game, though, so he's slowly working his way through old-Doug's music library, carefully combing through the recordings, internally practicing the exact way old-Doug jokes and speaks. It only feels a little like imitation; muscle memory knows these things already, and he just has to reprogram them in.  
With Jacobi, though, with his benign friendliness and considering glances, he never knows quite where he stands on his carefully maintained scale.   
About a third of the journey back to Earth, a month in, one of those considering looks turns to a question when Eiffel finds Jacobi lurking outside his room.  
"Hey," Eiffel says.  
"You seem more like him," Jacobi says. "Or- more like... you."   
"Oh," Eiffel says. It's a question disguised as a statement. Eiffel doesn't know the answer and has learned that he doesn't like subtext. "I'm not remembering anything, if that's what you're wondering."  
"Do you know something,?" Jacobi asks.  
"That's unlikely," he says, trying to insert the touch of humor that old-Doug used to diffuse situations. Jacobi smiles.  
"I really liked you. Him," Jacobi says. There's a touch of uncertainty in his voice Eiffel hasn't heard before.  
"That's good to hear," Eiffel says. The silence stretches out between them for a long moment.  
"We had sex." Jacobi states suddenly, flatly, a bit like it's been punched out of him. "You know. Space. High tensions. Not many people. Things happen."   
Eiffel is processing, so he coughs.  
There's another long pause. "I just want to know if you're pretending to be him or if it's just... you."  
Eiffel flinches, a little bit, and then thinks for a second. It's a fair question. "You know, I'm not sure."  
He looks at Jacobi, who looks tense and relaxed at the same time, carefully composed, floating off the ground in zero G. Daniel Jacobi is an undeniably attractive man, with soft features, curly hair, and the smooth curls of tattoos peeking out from underneath his jumpsuit.  
Eiffel considers this and tries very hard to stop thinking. He reaches for the habit, the instinct, the last parts of him that remain the Original Doug Eiffel.  
Instict tells him to reach for Jacobi. He wonders, briefly, if this is him or Original Doug, and decides it's both.   
Jacobi leans into his grasp as Eiffel's hand fists in the fabric of his jumpsuit and pulls him in.  
Eiffel closes his eyes, feels more than hears the sharp contracting of Jacobi's lungs, the soft rush of air, and smashes his face into Jacobi's, praying to old-Doug that muscle memory will take over.   
It fails him for a moment, but Jacobi makes a "mmph" sound as their faces collide ungracefully and gently takes control, hands coming up to cup Eiffel's face.   
From what Eiffel knows, Jacobi's nature is not gentle. Jacobi is a demolitionist. Jacobi's whole thing is destruction.  
But Jacobi handles Eiffel delicately, almost like a bomb to be defused. He is soft, careful, gentle in a way Eiffel doesn't recognize. It gives him dizzyingly strong deja vu, though it might just be the head rush.  
Jacobi pulls back after too few seconds. "Are you-" he asks, and bites off the question.  
Eiffel answers it anyways. "I'm a little bit him." He says. "I'm mostly me, but I like you. I think I'll like this."   
"You don't have many options, in terms of people," Jacobi says. "I also tried to kill... you. Him, once."  
"Don't care," Eiffel says.  
"Are you sure," Jacobi says, and Eiffel grabs his shirt and pulls him in.


End file.
